Zazen can be a con job

In Westernized Soto Zen there is the strong belief which, incidentally, is not found in the Buddhist canon, that zazen (lit. sit down Zen) is not instrumental.  Instead, when anyone sits on a zafu doing zazen they are the Buddha! 

I would call this a shortcut to Buddhahood which is really a ‘con job’ because the adept is made to believe, he or she doesn’t actually have to cross the waters of samsara to get to the other shore.  Instead, one never leaves this shore.  One is led to believe that this shore of samsara is the other shore of nirvana!  To reiterate, this is a con job.  

There is a huge distance between zazen and fully developed Buddhahood.  One is not a Buddha even if they sit for hours on a zafu with synthetics stuffings or organic!  In the Tathagata-garbha teaching of Buddhism, Tathagata-garbha, meaning the embryo or germ of attained tathatâ or suchness, a lot has to happen before this embryo is born as a baby Bodhisattva; finally to sit at the base of the Bodhi-tree, defeating Mara, and win enlightenment.  Zazen, in itself, is inadequate—it is just one tool among others.

The Tathagata-garbha is always veiled by defilements (klesas) which means we can’t connect with it.  Doing zazen or shikantaza for hours is not going to remove the defilements revealing the garbha.  There are nine examples which represent the condition of the garbha being defiled so that it is hidden from us.  They are as follows: 1) the Buddha in an ugly lotus flower; 2) honey concealed by a swarm of bees; 3) a kernel of fruit in the bark; 4) gold buried in impurities; 5) a treasure in the ground; 6) a sprout in a small seed; 7) the image of the Lord covered by a tattered garment; 8) the Universal Monarch in the womb of a miserable woman; 9) a precious statue covered by dust.  I should mention that each characteristic has a very subtle explanation.  The lotus flower, for example, eventually withers turning foul.  It represents the defilement of dormant desire (ragamushayalakasana-klesa) found in ordinary people (prithagjana).  It can only be removed by supermundane gnosis, that is, lokottara-jñâna.

Being veiled by layers of defilements it is not easy to remove them.  It is somewhat like washing off mud using mud.  More than often our efforts prove counterproductive because our ties with the material world, from where these defilements arise, are so strong.

Taking for granted that the Tathagata-garbha, according to the Sri-Mala Sutra, is the Dharmakaya (i.e., the true body of the Buddha) under conditions of defilement, no amount of passivity, or just sitting (J., shikantaza) is going to help us manifest this causal essence that lies within each of us.  We have to behold it directly which is to say, even though we are intrinsically it, we need to know it in a most profound way just like Zen master Hakuin did when he was reading the Lotus Sutra and heard the churrs of a cricket in the foundation stones of the temple.  This requires of us a lot of seeking.  I can't stress just how important seeking is.

 

Comments

[willy]

Oh, the zazen of the Mahayana!
To this the highest praise!
Devotion, repentance, training,
The many paramitas--
All have their source in zazen.
Those who try zazen even once
Wipe away beginning-less crimes.

Song of Zazen -- Hakuin (Rinzai)

[Jimbo]

Fully agree. The problem with people today is simply one of ego-tism. It is simply much easier to convince oneself that some half-assed sitting with a vague psychological insight (probably read in a silly western zen book) is reality. People have deluded themselves through the centuries but in modern day America we are masters of delusion.